At least 14 killed in IS attack on Baghdad gas plant

The Islamic State group launched a coordinated assault on a natural gas plant north of Baghdad that killed at least 14 people, according to Iraqi officials.

Iraqi pro-government in the town of Amriyat al-Fallujah, near Baghdad, after militant attacks. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

The attack started at dawn with a suicide car bomber hitting the main gate of the plant in the town of Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad.

Then several suicide bombers and militants broke into the plant and clashed with the security forces, an official said, adding that 27 troops were wounded.

The IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency credited a group of “Caliphate soldiers” for the attack.

In a statement, Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Younis said firefighters managed to control and extinguish a fire caused by the explosions. Younis said technicians were examining the damage.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, three separate bomb attacks targeted commercial areasm killing at least eight civilians and wounding 28 others, police added.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. IS extremists still control significant areas in northern and western Iraq, including the second-largest city of Mosul. It has declared an Islamic caliphate on the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria.

The group has recently increased its attacks far from the front lines in a campaign that Iraqi officials say is an attempt to distract from their recent battlefield losses.

Meanwhile in Yemen yesterday a suicide bomber detonated his explosives among policemen standing in line outside a police base in the southern city of Mukalla, killing 25, security and health officials said. At least 17 more people were injured in the attack and the officials said the death toll was likely to rise further.

The Yemeni affiliate of the extremist Islamist State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on social media networks by sympathisers with the group.

The victims were policemen returning to work for the first time since last month’s recapture of Mukalla by forces of the internationally recognised government. The city had been held for more than a year by Yemen’s local al-Qaeda affiliate.

The victims also included young men applying for jobs with the city’s local police.